The instant invention relates to granular built laundry detergent compositions which provide simultaneous laundering and fabric feel benefits during conventional fabric laundering operations. Such compositions employ a combination of non-soap synthetic detergent compounds, organic or inorganic detergent builders and particular smectite clay minerals having particular cation exchange characteristics.
Various clay materials have been utilized in many different types of detergent systems for widely diverse purposes. Clays, for example, have been disclosed for utilization as builders (Schwartz and Perry, Surface Active Agents, Interscience Publishers, Inc., 1949, pp. 232 and 299); as water-softeners (British Patent Nos. 461,221 and 401,413); as anticaking agents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,625,513 and 2,770,600); as suspending agents (U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,594,257; 2,594,258; and 2,920,045 and British Patent No. 1,294,253); as soil release agents (U.S. Pat. No. 3,716,488); and as fillers (U.S. Pat. No. 2,708,185).
It is also well known that some clay materials can be deposited on fabrics to impart softening and antistatic properties thereto. Such clay deposition is generally realized by contacting fabrics to be so treated with aqueous clay suspensions (See, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,033,699 and 3,594,212) under closely controlled conditions that can be realized during commercial manufacturing and treatment processes. Furthermore such commercial processes utilize clay concentrations in the range of 0.25% to 6% by weight, whereas at the conventional usage levels of laundry detergent compositions, clay minerals incorporated therein will be present at concentrations of 0.001% to 0.1% by weight of the wash liquor.
Attempts, however, to incorporate clay materials into built detergent systems for the purpose of providing simultaneous fabric laundering and fabric feel benefits have not been entirely successful. Conventional detergent builders tend to retard or inhibit the tendency of clays to deposit on fabric surfaces, such deposition being necessary to realize the desired fabric softening and/or static reduction. Furthermore, to provide the requisite uniform deposition of clay material onto fabrics being laundered, it must be thoroughly and quickly dispersed throughout the fabric laundering solution during the relatively brief wash cycle.
Some of these difficulties of providing through-the-wash clay softening have been resolved bby utilizing conventional fabric softening agents such as isostearic acid or polyamine or polyquaternary ammonium compounds in combination with clay in built detergent formulations (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,594,212 and 3,625,905). The teaching of these disclosures is that amine modification of the clay material is necessary or desirable for satisfactory fabric softening performance.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide compositions which can be employed to yield simultaneous fabric laundering and fabric feel benefits.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide such laundering and softening compositions in the form of built granular formulations.
It has surprisingly been discovered that by utilizing particular types of clay having particular cation exchange characteristics, these objectives can be realized and built granular fabric laundering, softening and antistatic compositions can be obtained which are unexpectedly superior to similar compositions known to the prior art.